Never Like A Fairy Tale
by Katrina Littlebird
Summary: A PostOotP ficlet. Hermione reflects on the logic of love and how she finally understands the meaning in terms of her greeneyed best friend. Slight angst.


**Disclaimer:** Nope, nothing here is mine. Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling except for this crappy piece of writing she wouldn't want to own anyway.

**A/N: **Wow! Look who's back again. It's me, your beloved H/Hr author Katrina Littlebird! I'm sorry I disappeared but here's the ficlet I promised. It's probably horrible, with bad shifts in tense and many typos, and here is _the_ story and I'm very happy I produced something. About time, no? To readers who read _The Required Person_ by _moi_ before, this is somewhat of a follow up, but not directly so. They're written in somewhat the same style and *cough* rating. I hope you enjoy it.

**Never Like a Fairy Tale**

_By: Katrina Littlebird_

**A Post-OotP Ficlet**

Love. What is love?

Oh goodness, everyone gasp! Brilliant and intelligent Hermione Granger had just asked for the definition of what must be one of the easiest words in the English language. Love. Amour in French and…well, I suppose you don't want to know how many languages I can say "love" in, do you?

So back to my original question. Yes, I have no idea what love means. Not even when I was tutoring Harry about how to make a girl, specifically Cho, like you. (Not that I was trying wholeheartedly, mind you.) I mean, I read my share of fairy tales and romance novels. Who wouldn't take a Prince Charming or read about the love life of Jane Eyre on a snowy day, curled up with a cup of hot chocolate by the window? How picturesque, eh? Just like the stories I'd read. Love is perfect. It's beautiful. You love someone and you instantly know it. You light with flames when you see the person you love, you feel warm all over…

And of course, it's all happy and sweet and everyone's a perfect family in the end.

Sounds cliché, no? After all, fairy tales are for little girls, not for sensible and logical Hermione Granger. Well, what am I supposed to read? A thick volume on the nature of the human mind to understand love?

I probably should. Since I believe that love is perfect and that if you love someone, you instantly know it. And of course, you know how to love someone.

Well, I thought I did in fifth year, anyway. That was probably the turning point for my life. I thought it had been fourth year when a boy actually liked me—in this case, I meant Ron, not Viktor—and that I actually liked him back. Nope. It was most definitely fifth year.

My best friend, my best friend whom I treat as my little brother, my _baby_ brother. The innocent little boy who somehow saved my life in first, second, third…. Well, anyway, someone I cooed and protected. Someone I'd like to spoil. I always was a maternal person, and Harry, with his orphan background and his hero status, especially appealed to that motherly vibe within me. Well, anyway, that person. _He kissed a girl._

Correction: he got himself a girlfriend.

And I was beside myself with something that was definitely not joy for him.

I suppose I should be happy for him. I mean, it was obvious he was hung up on her ever since third year and all, but it was like all of a sudden she replaced me. Ron and Ginny were always training in Quidditch, and Harry and Cho were going to be together now?

How nice. I was left out. And I was very jealous.

But being the good friend I was, I told him all my theories about having girlfriends and loving someone. I can tell you very plainly that I was not at all disappointed they broke up after all my "advices", and I was happier than ever when I was the one standing by Harry, battling _our_ way through the Department of Mysteries.

I guess I wasn't sure what I expected for sixth year. Perhaps he would ask me out? After all, after Cho and Michael broke up, she was pretty happy staying single, and I know that Harry probably would not be with her anyway. I was his closest female friend. If ever he needed any love or support, I would be there for him. That was what I told myself. He was able to love. He needed to love. So I would be there for you. It was a favor any friend would do. Except I was not completely selfless when I thought that.

And yet he didn't. Everything was calmer in sixth year, the sort of calm that comes before a storm. I could tell by the teachers' faces, the students' whispers, and that haunted look in Harry's eyes ever since he lost his godfather. I could tell by my own heart thumping every time Harry, Ron, and I read the _Daily Prophet_ together, and I could tell by the subtle changes in the school. Of course Harry wouldn't ask me out, I thought, watching him from across the house table at mealtimes, his eyes glazed as he poked at his uneaten potatoes. He was too busy with his destiny. He has no time for love.

I accepted this, and I tried even harder to be of assistance to him. I don't think Ron and I had ever left him much time by himself that year, and I was sure Harry appreciated that very much. And of course, it gave the impression that Ron and I were in love with each other.

Were we?

I do know now, but I didn't. It happened so suddenly. We were in the common room, everyone had gone up to sleep except for Harry, who fell asleep before the fireplace with a fatigued look on his young face, and Ron and I were just doing our homework.

And suddenly, I saw him leaning toward me. I should've just stood up and said I was sleepy and I should go up. I should've said no, Ron, I don't like you this way. But I stayed, and I leaned toward him and we kissed, probably much like the way Cho and Harry did.

It did not feel good at all. My head felt dizzy, but not from the euphoria of the kiss. It was as if something in my heart was telling me that this wasn't right. It wasn't right, I knew it wasn't. I loved Ron, and I did have a crush on Ron, but it was all long gone. We were best friends, and…I was not kissing the person I should be kissing. The person I wanted to kiss and hug and spend my life with was sleeping, unaware of everything that was going on, and I was kissing a boy I saw only as a brother.

Needless to say, Ron and I became a couple. Everyone thought we were perfect. I detected no sign of jealousy or surprise from Harry. But I never detected any signs of emotions since Sirius left us. I never knew what Harry felt unless he was willing to tell me.

And he wasn't.

One thought both haunted and held me together…Harry did not need me. He had much more important things to worry about. And sixth year rolled around, with Harry and Voldemort dueling again near the end. But this was different. Voldemort was in the school, _in_ the school, and the Gryffindors woke up in the middle of the night to see Voldemort somehow in the boys' dormitory. When the professors got here, he had fled, leaving Harry beyond. He seemed dazed, and when Ron and I called his name, he turned.

Our eyes caught. I felt a burning sensation I never felt when Ron and I kissed in Madam Puddifoot's. His eyes seemed to pierce through my soul. I might've imagined it, because when I blinked and opened my eyes again, he was on the floor, and had to stay in the hospital wing for two weeks till the term's end.

That summer, he came straight to the Burrow after stepping in Privet Drive to seal that blood magic. I was there with the Weasleys too, of course, and so was Neville. If there ever was a happy couple, that was Neville and Ginny. Brash and fearless Ginny, with kind and determined Neville. They radiated happiness together in those little gestures. Holding hands. Awkward kisses on the cheek. Ginny confided to me that the Yule Ball date back in her third year wasn't completely one-sided. Ron and I…well, except for a few kisses that made Fred and George delighted, it was just the same as ever, but Harry was even more preoccupied than ever. He seemed to keep everyone outside his world. He had a destiny to fulfill, and me, Hermione Granger, wasn't part of it.

I came to be convinced that I loved Ron. What did I know about love, anyway? We brought each other cute presents throughout July and August. We went on those so-called dates with Neville and Ginny. We flew on broomsticks and Ron saved me once, just as a Prince Charming should. We learned to interrupt each other, trying to finish each other's sentences, and share milk. We truly had fun, and a few times I thought I did feel electricity zapping through me when Ron rubbed my arms in the attic with the ghoul howling in the background. I really did. With Ron everything was as it should be, just like what happened in the books.

Yet everything seemed to change again the day before seventh year. It had been an unbearable hot day. The Weasleys, Harry, and I were in the garden, looking up at the sky. It was very peaceful. One by one, everyone stood up to leave, but this time Harry and I were left by ourselves. Ron was still arguing with George about the World Cup. I stood up to go too, but Harry turned to look at me, and something in his green eyes stood me. We sat together, watching the velvet sky, and Harry said, "Let's…let's take a walk around."

The garden was neither big nor romantic, but it seemed both that night, the crickets chirping in the distance. Sometime in the middle of the night, Harry suddenly said to me, "Marry me, Hermione."

I was horrified. I was barely seventeen! This must be a joke, but Harry looked dead serious. "What?" I croaked out, and then, instead of just saying "I love Ron!" I said, "We are too young."

"I know we are, but there's a war, and there's no time to lose." His voice was quiet.

"But…but…I…you know I'm Ron's girlfriend." He nodded. "And…and…well, and…you never showed me any sign or…you know!" Nod again. "And you want me to marry you? Are you completely out of your mind?"

"Perhaps," he said.

"I don't love you, Harry," I said, and in my mind I was thinking of Jane Eyre when her cousin proposed to her out of nowhere when her love was somewhere else. That was exactly the way I felt. Harry didn't love me. Ron did. And I reciprocated him. "You're my brother, and you…I…it isn't right!" My tone softened. "It's much too early for a commitment…and I'm not sure…me…or you…"

"I understand," said Harry. "Good night, Hermione." He kissed me on the cheek and left.

The next day, you'd have thought nothing had changed, but it did.

Seventh year was a horror. Hogwarts was constantly under attack, and Dumbledore was hardly seen throughout the school year. In Defense Against Dark Arts, we were finally allowed to learn dark magic instead of just defending against them. Flitwick and Hagrid taught us about warfare in addition to what we normally learn, and even the first years were seen dueling each other. Of course, as the year went on, less and less students were there in Hogwarts. Parents were afraid. Some of their families were destroyed.

But Harry, Ron, and I were always together. Studies were no longer the nub of my existence, surprisingly. I spent my days preparing spells for Harry and this time, I let him practice them on me.

And finally, the day came. Near the end, the Order was finally getting the upper hand. More and more Death Eaters and their plans were destroyed. Till one day, Dumbledore summoned Harry to his office. Before he left, both Ron and I knew that it was _the_ end.

"Take care, Harry," Ron said, and he ducked, mumbling that he had too many onions for lunch.

"Take care," I echoed Ron, and when it really came to goodbye did the memories of all the times past came back to me. Love. Forget any dictionary definitions. This was love.

Harry hugged Ron and me, and he left.

That was the last time I ever saw him.

Ron and I have broken up. Ask anyone and they will tell you it was the day he left. It wasn't. It had happened long before. Perhaps it happened the day Harry asked me to marry him, the day his hand brushed against mine on purpose, or maybe it had never happened in the first place. There was no fight. It was quiet and mutual. I believe Ron had found his sanctuary in Luna, and me? I'm still waiting for mine. And this time, there was no question who it was.

People say he defeated Voldemort and left the wizarding world for good, but I don't believe them. How could he? The wizarding world was _his_ world. All his happiest memories and friends are here. He can't just leave. I know he can't. He's somewhere…and he'll come back. I know he will.

One day, he'll come down the road toward Hogwarts, and I'll be there to meet him, no matter where I am, whether helping Muggles to rebuild their tattered world or being with my friends, I'll be there.

And for now, I'll wait.

And I don't need any definition of love to know that I had belonged to him even before we met, and he to me.

**A/N:** I know I may be asked this question…what happened to Harry?

What, indeed. Well, I'm not going to tell you right now. *smirk* It's open to imagination. I'm tempted to write a novel sequel to this, but it's going to be horrible, I know. It's going to be very cliché, so I won't even attempt it.

If you're a fan of mine (right, as if I have any), I have a H/Hr fic, a lengthier than TML, coming up! Hopefully it'll be better than this one.__

Comments are very welcome. Actually, please comment me and tell me the shortcomings of my writing. I got a 75 on an essay I thought I was very proud of and…yeah, so please tell me kindly but firmly what the heck is wrong with my writing. Point out dumb typos and grammar mistakes if you have to! You may even have a look at the essay and tell me what the heck is wrong with _that_.

Many thanks. (I know, I'm sounding desperate!)

**~Katrina Littlebird**


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